


In peace, may you leave this shore (In love, may you find the next)

by maudsfeather



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV), The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clarke, Clarke Griffin - Freeform, Clexa, F/F, lexa - Freeform, lexark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-07-10 19:11:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7001092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maudsfeather/pseuds/maudsfeather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alicia Clark meets Elyza Lex and they're just so gay that zombies drop dead of exposure to fabulousness. Or more seriously, Alicia meets Elyza and they feel a connection. Almost like... they knew each other in a past life. Rated M for violence, language and woo-hoo scenes in later chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading stories on here for years now, but this is my first time posting anything online. Feedback is very welcome, including constructive criticism, but also flattering compliments :D Thanks for reading!
> 
> Disclaimer: I obviously don't own FTWD because if I did, Eliza Taylor would already be in it.

 

Elyza Lex was having a very good day. She had scavenged a shotgun along with two big packs of shells, a brand new stainless steel canteen, a barely used pair of commando boots, painkillers, three packs of cigarettes, and an entire carton of canned food. She hadn't had that good a haul in months. Most importantly, she hadn't seen a single person, living, dead, or undead.

She walked back to her car with the carton of food in her arms and moved some things around in the trunk, making sure to arrange everything as securely as possible so that any reckless driving she might need to do wouldn't send things flying at her head. There were already plenty of ways for her to die in this mess of a world, no need to add stupidity to the list.

She sighed contentedly as she surveyed her neat pile of belongings and decided she deserved a mini-vacation. She knew the beach wasn't far, so she closed the trunk and got in the car, grabbing her sunglasses from the glove box and buckling her seat belt. She drove twenty minutes or so before she spotted a stretch of coast that seemed inviting. Parking the car directly on the beach, Elyza hopped out and did a quick routine check. No zombies. Good. No rotting corpses. Good. No people at all. Good.

Feeling entirely relaxed for the first time since she left L.A., she proceeded to get her towel, a can of soda, and a cigarette. As she plopped herself down and buried her feet in the warm sand, Elyza thought that the only thing missing was music. Sometimes she wished technology still worked. She also really, really missed her guitar. Unfortunately, guitars don't sound so good once you've used them to repeatedly bash in skulls, not to mention that getting the blood off would be a disgusting task. Damn walkers.

Elyza wondered if it would be safe to sleep on the beach tonight. How much safer would she be in an abandoned house than she would be in her car anyway? Ok, maybe a little safer. She'd slept in her car before, though, and she had an okay-ish security system in place to wake her up if she needed to quickly make an escape.

She lit her cigarette and looked up at the clear sky, noting that the stars would be visible tonight. There were few things as relaxing as feeling the ocean air, listening to the waves, and staring up at the stars while laying in the cool sand. Fuck it, she felt like sleeping on the beach, she was going to sleep on the beach. What would be the point of all this surviving, if she couldn't stop to enjoy the good things?

As that thought crossed her mind, she had a strange sense of déjà-vu. _Maybe life should be about more than just surviving._ She felt like she had said those words out loud before, she just couldn't remember in what context. This gave her pause, and she sat unmoving for several minutes trying to recall the memory, until she felt her fingers abruptly getting hot and she dropped the end of her cigarette in surprise.

Her stomach was starting to protest from lack of food so she got up, took her newly acquired shotgun from the front seat of the car, loaded it, and slung it over her shoulder thanks to the strap it was attached to. She also grabbed her axe, because a shotgun blast is about as subtle as a stampede of elephants and she'd rather avoid attracting anything. She locked the car before heading on foot to a patch of trees a few hundred yards away to gather firewood.

It was only after she had already come back, lit a fire, put a pot of soup over it and started rummaging through her things for her utensils that she noticed her new boots weren't in the car. What the hell? She was sure she had tied them to the side of her green duffel bag. She searched the car a second time, thinking she might have overlooked them somehow. Not only were they nowhere to be found, Elyza now realized a few other things were missing. Her windbreaker. One of the bigger flashlights. Maybe a few cans of food, but she couldn't be sure.

A spike of fear ran through Elyza's body and she quickly jumped out of the trunk back onto the sand, pulling her shotgun from her back and scanning the area around her. She couldn't see or hear anyone. Hadn't she locked the car before she left? She inspected the sand for footprints, but it was so soft and scattered that she couldn't tell if those were her footprints or someone else's. Heart rate slowly returning to normal, but still feeling uneasy, Elyza tried to gather her thoughts. If someone had been here, and stolen her things, why hadn't they taken more? It would have been more efficient to just grab one or two bags and run. Whoever it was, they had ninja skills and that worried her. The thought struck her that the person could still be here, watching from afar, hidden in the trees or near the road that ran parallel to the coast. This was no good. No good at all.

What if she was just being paranoid? Maybe she somehow misplaced a few items while rearranging the trunk in the parking lot, and _thought_ about tying her boots to her duffel bad but didn't actually do it. _Fuck,_ she thought, _I'm losing it._

Whatever the case may be, she didn't feel comfortable staying on the beach anymore. She quickly went back to her soup, cursing under her breath because she had left it unattended too long and the bottom of the pan was sticky with overcooked mush. She carefully poured the soup into a thermos, leaving out the mush, then rinsed the pan in the ocean, using sand to scrub the bottom. She kept a keen eye on her surroundings for any movement.

_One day. One single, good day from beginning to end, without anything to ruin it. Was that too much to ask for?_

Throwing a panful of seawater onto the dying fire, Elyza picked up the rest of her belongings, got in the car and drove back to the road to head towards the nearest houses. They were roughly 20 miles further in the direction she had been heading, on the outskirts of a small town. It was only mid-afternoon, which meant she had plenty of time to get there and clear out a house to spend the night in. She slid a CD into the battered car stereo, determined to cheer herself back up, and concentrated on the road ahead.


	2. Chapter 2

Elyza opened her eyes and found it was still dark. She groggily brought her wrist up in front of her face and pressed the little button on the side of her father's watch, illuminating it with blue light. It was 3:47 a.m. Thinking that her need to use the bathroom was what had woken her, she started unzipping her sleeping bag, and as she did so, she heard yelling outside. She froze and listened for more sounds. A car engine sputtered. Doors slammed. Someone yelled. The sounds started getting closer, and it seemed like some kind of fight was happening.

Elyza hastily attempted to untangle her legs from her sleeping bag, grab her gun from the floor beside the couch, and stand all at the same time. This resulted in her crashing into the coffee table, and she probably would have sliced her head open on the edge of it if she hadn't caught herself. Nothing like a good apocalypse to instill some reflexes into you in record time.

Finally extracting herself from her stupid bag, Elyza crouched over to the nearest window, pushing the dusty curtains aside and peeking through a crack between two wooden boards she had nailed over the window the previous day. As her eyes focused and she realized what she was seeing, her brain instantly snapped into wide-awake survival mode.

A very, _very_ large horde of walkers was approaching, slowly but steadily climbing over cars and pushing through the battered wooden fences of the surrounding yards. A few feet ahead of the horde, closest to Elyza's window, were two people running. Ignoring her instinct to go help them, she stayed crouched at the window and observed for a few seconds as they distanced themselves from the horde, running faster, stumbling once or twice because of the bags and weapons they were carrying. Looking a bit further behind them, Elyza caught a glimpse of a stationary car headlight as the walkers swarmed around it. It seemed like the two runners had crashed into a parked truck then abandoned the car, taking their things with them.

Elyza continued to watch them, becoming increasingly nervous as they ran closer and closer to her house, then slowed into to a jog. One of them looked around at the nearby houses, apparently searching for a place to hide. They were bringing the horde right to her goddamn doorstep.

She stood and collected her belongings, vaguely registering the two voices talking outside. Luckily she was prepared, having left most of her things in her locked car, taking only one duffel bag with her valuables and a few clothes into the house. She slung the bag over her shoulder and hurried towards the door that led from the kitchen to the garage, gun in one hand and car keys in the other. The garage had been open so she had parked the car directly inside knowing it would be easily accessible from the house, as well as being well-placed for a quick escape.

Elyza silently opened the car door on the driver's side and leaned across the seat, putting her bag on the floor in the passenger's side. As she was pushing herself back up to sit behind the wheel, she heard glass breaking, then a woman's voice.

“Aden! We don't have time, we need to keep running, they're catching up!”

Elyza left the car door open and advanced in the shadows of the garage towards the driveway to see what was happening in the street. It was hard to make anything out because most of the street lamps were broken, but by this point the two runners were right across the street from her, and in their haste they hadn't noticed her yet. It seemed like the second person had broken a car window and was now attempting to hot-wire the car, their legs sticking out past the door and their head hidden near the pedals where Elyza couldn't see.

“Aden!” the woman said again urgently, raising her gun toward the approaching walkers. Elyza turned her head to look at the horde and realized how much closer it had gotten in the few seconds that had passed. She took three strides back to the car and jumped into the driver's seat, closing the door and buckling her seat belt. At the same time, she heard the car in the street start. She twisted in her seat and looked back through the rear window of her car. The person who had hot-wired the car, Aden, apparently, was getting in the driver's seat with his bags.

“Come on, get in!” he shouted at the woman, who had been peering at the garage. It didn't seem like she could see Elyza but she must have heard her closing her car door.

The woman looked back towards Aden and ran to other side of their car, opening the passenger's door, and just as Elyza started her own car and shifted it into reverse, preparing to back out of the driveway, Aden and the woman's car died.

“Fuck!”, Elyza heard the woman say, “Aden, come on, just get out, we need to run!”

Elyza made a split-second decision and slammed her foot onto the accelerator, backing out of the driveway and turning onto the street, tires screeching a little, so that the driver's side was facing Aden and the woman. They had backed away onto the sidewalk and were both pointing their guns at Elyza's car, they had probably thought she was going to run them over. She ignored the guns and rolled down her window.

“Get in!” she shouted at them.

They hesitated for a second before rushing towards Elyza's car, quickly looking back at the line of zombies leading the horde and who were now just a few feet away. The woman jumped in behind Elyza while Aden ran around the front of the car and got in the passenger's seat.

They had barely closed their doors that Elyza was already speeding forward, carefully watching both her rear-view mirror and the road in front of her, headlight beams cutting through the dark, her attention entirely focused on not crashing into anything. For a few tense seconds that seemed like minutes she slalomed between debris on the road and a few stray zombies who had heard the commotion and were coming in from the opposite direction.

As things calmed down and Elyza started slowing the car to a normal speed, still checking all her mirrors for any signs of trouble, Aden let out a heavy breath of relief and looked at her.

“Wow, thanks. That was intense,” he said.

“Yeah, thank you,” said the woman in the back seat, and Elyza saw two green eyes looking at her in the darkness of the rear-view mirror.

“I'm Alicia,” the woman said, “This is Aden.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! No, I haven't died. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update - I'm a slow writer, and sometimes I don't feel like writing for months on end. I've also been dealing with some bad heartbreak and haven't felt like writing anything romance-related. However, the fact that I'm still getting email alerts of people subscribing to my story has motivated me to keep going. Thank you :)

Elyza was feeling a little bit nervous. Every once in a while, as she drove in the calm of the deserted road, she'd steal a glance at Alicia's reflection in the rear-view mirror. Sometimes she'd catch her eye before quickly looking away, but most of the time, Alicia was staring out the window, leaving Elyza to study her silhouette, softened in the darkness of the still-early morning.

Aden had fallen asleep in the passenger's seat an hour ago, his head leaned against the window, after they all agreed on driving until it would be light enough to find a safe place to rest. The sun came up at 6 this time of year.

Wanting to distract herself from the involuntary glancing game she was playing with Alicia, Elyza slid a CD into the stereo, making sure to turn the volume down first as to not wake Aden. She forced herself to stare at the horizon in front of her as the lazy jazz sounds coming from the speakers enveloped her in a bubble, and soon, Elyza was transported back in time, reminiscing about when she was a child. Her father would put a vinyl on his old record player, then make her dance by placing her tiny feet on top of his and guiding a giggling Elyza into graceful steps all around the living room. She'd feel like she was flying, her cheeks flushing and her hands gripping her father's sweater tightly as to not slip off the top of his feet. This jazz album used to be his favorite.

Lost in the memory, Elyza didn't notice the rising sun slowly spilling orange light all around them, nor Alicia's eyes observing her in the mirror.

“Are you ok?” Alicia's timid voice startled Elyza out of her reverie.

Realizing that the thoughts of her father had brought tears to her eyes, Elyza quickly blinked them away, slightly embarrassed that she had let herself get emotional in front of a stranger.

“I'm fine,” Elyza cleared her throat, “just thinking about stuff.”

She looked over at Aden who had stirred a little in his sleep.

“Is he your brother?” she asked Alicia.

“No,” Alicia replied, turning to look back out the window.

Then, still looking out the window, “Should we stop to rest? There's no one around. We can just sleep in the car for a bit.”

Elyza looked at the rough wilderness stretching on all sides around them. Unless she was mistaken, the nearest town was still a few hour's drive away, not counting the now walker-infested one they had left behind. She had a few jugs of drinking water and food left in the car to hold them until then.

“Sure,” Elyza replied, “Let's find a spot with some shade.”

* * * * *

The heat was stifling and even though all the windows were open there wasn't a breeze to be found, and Elyza was sweating. She unstuck herself from the leather car seat and rolled to her other side, facing the window, trying to get comfortable. She heard Aden stirring behind her in the passenger's seat, probably just as uncomfortable from the heat as she was.

They had been stopped under a lone tree in the middle of nowhere for the past five hours, and Elyza was pretty sure no one had slept much. She certainly hadn't. They had only gotten about three hours of pleasant early-morning temperature before the sun decided to start roasting them in the car like sardines in a can.

Elyza's left side was already too hot and sticking to the car seat. She rolled over once more, facing Aden, and saw that he was laying on his back with his eyes open and his arms above him on the headrest. He seemed to be lost in thought. Elyza craned her neck to look in the back where Alicia was laying across the length of the seats, but she couldn't tell whether she was sleeping or not, Alicia's head was hidden by Aden's reclined seat.

Elyza sighed and pushed sweaty hair out of her eyes.

“I'm going outside to pee, I'll be back in a minute,” she whispered to Aden.

He startled a little as she spoke, then nodded, looking at her curiously as she took the car keys out of the ignition, shoved them in her pocket, grabbed her hunting knife from the top of the dashboard, opened her door and stepped out of the car.

Leaving the door open, Elyza walked off towards some low bushes in the distance, thinking about what her next step should be.

They were complete strangers. Now what? She had decided to help them in the heat of the moment, not thinking about what kind of awkward situation she might find herself in if they happened to be untrustworthy, or if they ended up not wanting to leave so that they could take advantage of her supplies. Not that she would actually mind their company all that much – they seemed alright, really, and she was tired of being lonely… _but they're strangers_ , she reminded herself.

After squatting in the bushes and cursing the lack of toilet paper in this zombie-infested world (toilet paper was getting harder and harder to find, not to mention it took up a lot of space, so she only used it when she really needed it – using water instead when she had access to it), Elyza headed back to the car, squinting in the sun at the two figures moving around it. Alicia and Aden were up, Aden was stretching and Alicia was squatting over something on the ground, her arms busy with whatever it was.  
As she got close enough, Elyza realized it was a small fire.

“California heat not enough for you?” Elyza asked once she reached them, quirking an eyebrow at Alicia and letting an amused smile escape.

Alicia raised her head to look at Elyza and smiled back, rolling her eyes.

“I'm hungry. You try eating that shit cold,” Alicia tipped her head at the canned meatballs sitting on the ground near the fire she was tending to.

“If you're making meatballs, we need spaghetti,” Elyza decided, walking to the back of her car and fishing out the box of dry food.

“Oh my god. I love you,” Aden said enthusiastically, walking around the car to stand behind Elyza, craning his neck over her shoulder to look at the box. “We've been eating just canned meatballs and peaches for four days straight. We didn't have anything else.”

Elyza laughed and threw the spaghetti box for him to catch, turning back to the car trunk to look for her utensils. Alycia already had a grill set over the fire and was in the process of filling her camping pot with water.

Aden and Alicia busied themselves making the food and setting up a little area for them to eat comfortably, laying out a small tarp and plates on the ground, leaving Elyza to stand there feeling slightly useless. She definitely didn't notice the beads of sweat sliding down Alicia's neck and into the curve between her breasts as she crouched in front of the fire, giving Elyza a view of her cleavage, nor the way her tank top stuck to her body. She also didn't notice how Alicia's arms were thin but toned, or how her dark hair fell upon her face as she leaned down, or how her lips were pink and her cheeks were flushed from the heat.

_Nope. Nope. Not going there. Don't be an idiot, Elyza._

Snapping out of her very gay thoughts, Elyza went to fetch her Atlas in the glove compartment, sat on the tarp, and concentrated on the pages as Aden served them the cooked food.


End file.
